Unring a Bell
by malanthropy
Summary: Ethan Morgan's started having Vision problems. Not only is he seeing more, but his visions are getting longer, and what he sees doesn't seem to change. And he can't stop! Benny/Ethan.
1. First Day Back

Story: "Unring a Bell" by Tsu

Details: My Babysitter's a Vampire fanfic, Benny/Ethan pairing

Summary: Ethan Morgan's started having Vision problems. Not only is he seeing more, but they're getting longer, and what he sees doesn't seem to change. And he can't stop!

* * *

><p>"Sophomore year! I feel like a king, dude."<p>

Ethan rolled his eyes. "Benny, we're still underclassmen. Even when we're seniors, we still won't be cool."

"You're missing the point, E!" He turned around on the spot and gripped his friend's shoulders with a wild look in his eyes. "_Freshmen girls,_" he whispered excitedly, savoring each—

_He stood in a cramped kitchen that had seen a lot of wear. Light flooded the room through clean windows and an opaque skylight, giving a relaxing Kodak-moment feeling to the room. He wasn't sure what was on the kitchen counter in front of him, but it looked like a terrifying evolution of the peanut butter cup pizza. Since when did it have so much icing? His arms rifled through the cabinets for all kinds of stuff-three kinds of sprinkles, chocolate hard shell, other candy bars-breaking them up and throwing them on at random. It was a good three minutes of food porn, and he kept waiting for the vision to end, but it never did.  
><em>

_Just then, Benny walked in, carrying plastic grocery bags that had paper bags inside them full of clinking bottles. He ran his left arm up the doorway and spread his right knee sideways in his worst off-Broadway Zorro impression. "El wine," he said in a husky voice and a cheesy grin, "est arrivo'd!" He was older, taller, and wearing good clothes that fit him astonishingly well. But his humor hadn't changed an inch._

"_Benny, you idiot, put those down before you break them," joked a voice Ethan discovered to be a lower version of his own. "C'mere, we'll have to make space in the fridge." Were they living together? That would be cool. That was their dream post-Whitechapel, to head to university and have their own place._

_Older Benny dropped his pose and walked toward him. "Hey hey, Mister Business, first things first. Don't I get a hug?" He unleashed the puppy dog eyes as if on cue, which looked as dorky on Probably-In-College Benny as they did on Highschool-Sophomore Benny. _

_Ethan felt his face mock a groan. "Patience, El Capitain." A smile cracked on both their faces, and he saw both his and Benny's hands lift—his at waist level, Benny's at face level—when Ethan realized something was different. Benny's fingertips touched his cheek— _

"Whoa! Come on, Ethan, you can't pass out on your first day back," called a familiar voice. Not weird older Benny. Normal Benny.

Ethan exhaled a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "It was a vision. How long was I out?" he asked nervously. Benny helped him up from the ground and Ethan dusted the dirt off his pants.

"Um, three seconds, maybe? Why? What'd you see?"

"Well, it was us, but older... and in college, I think. We have our own apartment... or house... or something."

"You saw our future selves? Sweet! How did I look? How awesome is our place?"

If Ethan had to guess, Benny's next question would probably be how hot his future girlfriend was, how many parties they hosted and how often, and if any vampire stuff was going on. But all Ethan could do was try to hide his reaction, and share as much of the truth as he thought he could stand. "I don't know, Benny. I've never seen anything like this. It wasn't that anything strange was happening... it was like looking in on five minutes of daily life, but it was every second of those five minutes. Usually the stuff I see is confusing but short, but this was just long and not very important, to be honest."

"Maybe you're turning into Dr. Manhattan? All of space and time at your command. Good deal."

Despite his nervousness, Ethan had to laugh. "No way. I don't want to be blue and naked for the rest of my life."

The tension was gone for now, but Ethan was still on edge. He knew Benny like the back of his hand. He knew which 80's B-movies to pull out when Benny was in a bad mood. He had a list going of their best deaths and most triumphant victories in _Ninja Sasquatch_, which had been a classic with them since third grade. He could tell you by instinct how much juice one of Benny's sugar highs would have before the imminent crash. But this? This wasn't right. He loved Benny to death, sure, but he didn't love Benny. They were best friends, not... whatever he'd seen. What the heck was his seeing trying to pull?

They kept talking about superheroes on the way to school, but Ethan couldn't get those five minutes (and _five minutes! _What was going on?) out of his head. He'd never been kissed before, but he knew enough to know that that's what their future selves were about to do, and that was ridiculous. He tried to forget—to put it out with Biology, or History, even Gym. But all day, there was a nagging voice in his head... _you can't forget, you can't unsee._

_You can't unring a bell.  
><em>


	2. First Night Away

As the day continued, enough happened to make the morning's vision little more than an uncomfortable twinge. The freshman girl Benny asked out during lunch declined him three seconds into his usual "candlelight dinner, the mountains, and you" line, they only had one afternoon class together, and Rory managed to crash into Ethan while trying to convince Erica of the many bonuses of dating Vampire Ninja. His reputation was, as usual, a disaster—_at least something stays normal around here, _Ethan thought with a sigh.

"Well, we don't have any homework," Benny said brightly as they walked home. He was an old hand at rejection; some combination of experience and a consistently foul social standing made him resilient to "no way, geek," and, worse, always ready to redouble his efforts. The way Benny told it, he'd secured his date to the eighth grade dance through willpower alone. "C'mon, let's see if we can start a movie before your mom gets home," he conspired, walking shiftily toward Ethan's house.

Ethan started the popcorn while Benny checked the TV guide on his iPhone; they settled on _Ruby Rasputina_, something that almost never got airtime. They flopped on the couch and dug absently into the tub of popcorn between them.

"Oh, hey, did you have any of those weird visions since this morning?" Benny asked offhandedly while the opening credits flicked by.

_The vision_. Ethan seized up—a few kernels crunched together in his frozen hand. It was like the house had been waiting for him to realize that they were alone and separated only by a half-empty carton... and then he couldn't stop his imagination from running away from him. Benny's ten-dollar cologne blended with the overbuttery aroma rising from the popcorn; his chest and Benny's breathed in sync with Ruby's 80's-techno fight scene music; his skin just inches away—if he weren't completely out of his mind with fear, he might have found it funny. "Uh, no, just that one this morning..." he stuttered, trying valiantly to take his hand out of the popcorn without tipping the whole thing over.

Benny hadn't seemed to notice—Ruby was a looker, after all. "Wonder why?" He shoveled some popcorn into his mouth, and kept talking between chews. "Maybe something's wrong with our futures? I dunno, E, maybe you should try looking, maybe it's like a Doctor Who episode, we get some advance warning—you said it yourself, your visions never lie. Maybe—whoa, dude, hey, chew first, chew first!" yelled Benny, as Ethan started coughing violently.

_Your visions never lie. _The words wouldn't stop echoing through his head, even though _can't breathe can't breathe choking shit _should have taken more precedence. He stopped coughing as the popcorn lodged solidly in his throat, blocking any whisper of breath. Ethan stamped the floor furiously to get Benny's attention, and after a moment of shock, Benny sprang to action.

"Okay, right, heimlich, stay steady," Benny said quickly, more for himself than Ethan, positioning himself behind his breathless friend. With a mixture of annoyance and affection, Ethan realized how smoothly they fit together like this, with Benny's shoulders nudging his own, his arms locked protectively around Ethan's stomach, his breath puffing down his neck, behind his ears... he couldn't possibly admit to Benny what this was like, but whether the first jab under his ribs did it or whether his nervousness and oxygen deprivation knocked him out, either way he left his family room in the present for a cramped kitchen in the future.

The third jab pushed a wad of popcorn out of Ethan's throat and onto the carpet, but to Benny's confusion, Ethan wasn't gasping in relief or anything. He turned the seer around front to make sure he wasn't out cold, and realized from the glassy, moonish look in Ethan's eyes that his seer friend was seeing. Just in case, he put his hand on Ethan's chest to make sure air was going through. The moment he did, Ethan blinked and shook his head, leaving the trance. He looked dazed and happy until he saw Benny; his eyes shot open with fear.

Benny pulled his hand back quickly, concern making him look at Ethan sideways. "Are you feeling alright? I mean, apart from strangling yourself."

Ethan took a few deep breaths. "Five hours, Benny."

"What?"

"The vision I just had was _five hours long._"

"_What?_"


	3. Possession and Paralysis

True worry didn't often happen to Benny, but Ethan couldn't find any other way to describe the look he was getting from his friend. Benny tried to play it off by doing the vitals check he'd seen so often in movies ("fever? No. Anything broken? Nothing? Okay, good."), but that only lasted for so long. Eventually the joke subsided, and only the look was left. "So... do you want to...?" his voice trailed.

"Give me a second," Ethan croaked.

_Think __back._

* * *

><p>He had returned to their future selves a couple hours later in the day of the first vision. He couldn't focus on what was going on for the first five minutes because of shock, and didn't pay attention to the next five because he kept expecting to leave for home. When that didn't pan out, he opted to do some info-gathering until his train came.<p>

The first thing he noticed was that both this vision and the one before were very physical. Most visions were glimpses, but Ethan had all five senses here. When Future-Him went to grab the peanut butter, it wasn't just that he understood that the arm belonged to the being he was inhabiting, but it was in every sense _his __arm_, except that he had no control over what it did. Even then, he could sense Future-Ethan's surface thoughts and hear the reason in them, so most of his other's movements were predictable, changing very fluidly from thought to action. He could taste the sandwich that the peanut butter belonged to, and feel the texture of the whole grain grating his gums. It was possession and paralysis, as if his mind were Han Solo in carbonite, except the carbonite was another Han Solo.

Even his burst of fear was suppressed when College-Benny walked into the living room from the bathroom. He got the whole picture then - it wasn't that he was becoming this other him; it was that he couldn't be two people at once, and the one experiencing life would be the one he defaulted to. He usually gave real life a lot of grief for not being as amazing as a video game, but he never imagined being so overwhelmed by stimuli for something as simple as a sandwich and a friend.

However, none of this changed the fact that he was completely terrified. Unable to blink, to look away, to choose not to feel, to force away emotions.

"Toss me the Febreze?"

"_Again?_" he groaned. "Have the last five trips to that food truck taught you _anything?_"

Benny pondered it with a smirk. "Their enchiladas are delicious?"

"For the love of... rrgh. Benny, in the hands of your bowels, those enchiladas are a weapon that could destroy a weaker man." Ethan snatched the Febreze out of a lower cabinet, walked over, and pretended to smack Benny in the face with it.

"Lucky me, then," Benny replied softly, taking the Febreze from Ethan's hand and placing it on the side table next to him. He stood there, looking intensely into Ethan's eyes with only the hint of a smile. Present-Benny never did that; it was almost unnerving.

But Ethan could feel a switch of anticipation in Future-Ethan's thoughts—probably from experience, future-him knew what was coming next. "Hm?"

"To have an _amant_ that can survive the darkness of my being," Benny intoned, touching a hand to Ethan's chest. He took a step closer and smeared his hand underneath Ethan's arm and around to his back, pulling the seer against him. Present-Ethan could feel both hearts slowly syncing to a worryingly fast tempo as Benny drifted his head next to Ethan's. "And for that I am grateful," he whispered slowly, pushing the consonants across Ethan's neck.

Both Ethans had the same thought—only Benny. Only Benny! Only Benny would turn a shit joke into a pickup line. Future-Ethan felt the powerful need to call him out on his unbelievable level of corniness, but held himself back because (as Ethan discovered) he'd called Benny out on something similar before, with "unfavorable" results. Ethan felt the smirk of the personal joke shift his cheek muscles over Benny's temple, and fully understood how his fingers were suddenly in the roots of Benny's hair and tracing the outline of Benny's shoulder blades. Present-Ethan didn't even have the freedom to feel shocked when they drew closer still, a slow tangle of hearts beating and lungs breathing and skin-touching-blood-flowing-mind-blanking

"Right, time to spray down the stench." The warmth of the moment plummeted as Benny turned around nonchalantly.

_Buh?_

"What?" Benny asked, already halfway to the bathroom. He was holding the Febreze like it was the obvious answer to an equation.

"But—"

"What?" he asked again. "Is this that thing about manners again? I did say 'thank you,'" he noted, playing innocence at its best.

Ethan grunted. "Nevermind," he muttered, walking toward the kitchen.

"No, tell me!" Benny laughed, doing a quick, five-second spray in the bathroom before coming back out. He put the Febreze down and walked over to Ethan, taking his hand in an over-dramatically sincere fashion. "What's wrong?" he asked, patronizingly. "You can tell me."

_Dammit, __you __know __exactly __what __you're __doing,_ thought Future-Ethan with a glare and a pout. "You left."

Benny grinned for a split second, but morphed it into a smile to keep up the act. "Aw, is that all? I had to take care of some big-people problems, dearheart, but I'm back now." He gave Ethan a hug with some faux-consoling back taps. "There, now, isn't this b—"

Suddenly, Benny was unable to finish a sentence, as Ethan was too busy jamming his tongue down the spellmaster's throat.

* * *

><p>He took a long gulp from the glass of water Benny brought him, and tried to process it all, to see what he could actually tell his friend. But whenever he took a sip he remembered saliva, and every time his hand brushed anything he felt skin. Unnervingly, he realized that the hoodie Benny was wearing was the same one he'd violently unzipped and thrown to the other end of the couch in the future, which brought with it a whole host of actions that he wished he wouldn't have remembered with such clarity. He wished they'd had the forethought to do more than grab a blanket when they later fell asleep together on the couch, even though the people who burst into their apartment expecting a party were more amused than surprised to find them. Together. Like that.<p>

Ethan shuddered.

"So...?" Benny asked, clearly trying to be more considerate than curious.

He took a deep breath. What could he even say? "Well, they were.. um.."

"Yeah?"

"There was a party, I think, but..."

"It's okay, E. You can tell me."

You can tell me. You left. Aw, is that all? I had to take care of some big-people problems—

_oh __god_.

He felt something fizzle and then go silent. Brief flashes of the present melded with the future (or was that the present?) and went dark. He heard something like water flowing, and suddenly came to his senses when he realized he'd tipped the glass of water and it was pouring onto his jeans. There was a firm hand on his shoulder and another lightly tapping his cheek. "Ethan!" shouted Benny's voice. Skin on skin.

"Don't _touch_ me!" Ethan roared.

* * *

><p>AN: Huge thanks to everyone who commented. I'm really glad you like it! And I'm sorry for the really sporadic updates - life and school can get in the way of a lot of things. Worry not. :3<p> 


	4. Protector and Protected

He'd never seen Ethan's eyes so angry and afraid, never seen his teeth clamped so tight that spit bubbles frothed and popped when he breathed. It was like someone had tapped into a beast within Ethan that never knew whether to choose fight or flight, instead standing motionless and powerless, but nevertheless enraged. Benny hadn't moved the position of his arms at all except to jerk back. Now, he wasn't sure which was more awkward—the endless silence, or his frozen position. At a loss for words, Benny just stood there, trying his best not to stare too deeply into that nightmarish gaze.

Eventually, Ethan's eyes seemed to relax, shortly followed by the rest of his face; he dropped his back onto the armrest of the couch and exhaled slowly. "Sorry," he muttered, looking askance. The mood hung in the air, strung together by his nerves. "I don't think I can.."

Autonomy came back to Benny, to his surprise. He put his arms next to his sides with a certain amount of confusion and stepped back. "No, that's okay, you don't ha—"

"It's not that I—"

"—ve to say if you—"

"—don't want to, it's just that—"

"Ethan!"

"—oh," he sputtered, surprised and embarrassed.

Benny sighed and grabbed his backpack from the floor. "Nothing's coming for us, right? In your visions?"

"Well, not exactly, but—"

"It's okay. I forgot that Gram needed me to clean out the basement today, and… well…" his voice trailed off, eyes trailing across the carpet. They floated to Ethan's face for a moment, but jerked away the instant they met his friend's eyes. "I'll see you tomorrow, I guess." A gray, polite smile twinged on Benny's lips as he walked away, and of all the miserable and disturbing sights Ethan had seen and "seen" that day, this was the worst.

The door closed; Ethan winced. Of course Benny wouldn't trust him after that. Who would? He realized Ruby Rasputina had been playing the whole time—Benny's favorite part, too. He jammed his teeth together and pushed his palms the sides of his head as hard as he could stand. Why this, and why Benny?

* * *

><p>Of course Benny didn't need to clean out the basement "today." Or any day, for that matter, as long as Gram was alive, because she never let him downstairs if she could help it. Whatever was eating Ethan's head made him even forget <em>that<em>, which meant this was serious. Which meant it was time to take action.

Once he got back in his room, he pulled out two things. One was his spellbook; the other was his iPhone. A quick trip to the address book, and then: "Rory, you don't need to sleep anymore, right? Great. Mission tonight, my house, br—no, don't bring your toolkit. Just your feet, Batman. And don't tell Ethan."

That night, Rory arrived as promised, along with infrared goggles that he figured he'd bring "just in case." Awash with excitement, he bombarded Benny with questions which Benny ignored as they walked over to Ethan's side of his house. He pointed at Ethan's bedroom window. "Can you get me up there?" he asked.

"But maybe the demonspawn would—huh?" Rory sputtered, knocked out of his quest-trance prematurely. "Why do you need to get into Ethan's room? I thought you said this was a mission!"

"It _is_ a mission!"

"What, to draw on Ethan's face? Vampire Ninja does not use his powers for no reason! Most of the time."

Benny gave an exasperated sigh. "Something's up with Ethan and I want to find out what's going on. He won't tell me and I don't want to push him, so I'm just going to ask."

"But… he's asleep."

"Exactly," Benny said with a grin, hefting his spellbook. "I found something that'll let me talk with the unconscious. Or maybe it's just the dead, but I adapted it, so it'll work for sleeping people. This way, he won't feel so awkward about it."

"I dunno, dude…"

"Come on! Maybe he'll say something stupid you can use on him later. Let's just go!"

And go they did, expertly prying open Ethan's bedroom window, climbing in over the windowsill, and tiptoeing across the room to his bed. Benny hadn't thought up a Plan B in case Ethan was awake, but luckily he didn't have to—Ethan was snoring slightly, his mouth open. "Alright," Benny said in a whisper, "a quick tap and a few words. Let's warm up this truthmonkey."

"…dude?"

"Nevermind." Benny placed two fingers of his right hand on Ethan's throat, and whispered "_somnis solulocus._" He felt a spark rush up his arm and twitch his fingertips inward, as if it was plucking Ethan's vocal cords.

Many strange things happened at once. Out from the initial spark branched veins of light moving indirectly from Ethan's neck to his jaw, making two grates over Ethan's lips and prying them further apart, showing a muted glow coming from the back of his throat. To Benny's shock, his eyes opened, but not because he was awake—one eye was clearly asleep, while the other had the white iris of a vision-in-progress.

"Okay, that's a new one," Rory stuttered.

"Yeah. Yeah, definitely," Benny agreed, looking worriedly at Ethan's vision-eye. "Let's give this a shot." He cleared his throat—you had to be authoritative with this spell. "What have you been seeing in your visions?"

A pause. "Us, in the future, attending college," responded a hollow echo of Ethan's voice. The tiny light-roots pushed and pulled his mouth and jaw into the correct shapes for words, and a sinew running down his tongue extended it unnaturally for l's and t's. He looked dead—he sounded dead. But his eyes were still a different story. His white eye never moved, but every once in awhile, the sleeping eye would jerk into action and start looking around feverishly, blinking like mad, before becoming motionless again.

"What danger lies in the future?" Benny asked, unnerved.

"More and less. The accident brings us closer and inspires strength, but the challenges are greater."

"The accident?"

"Yes." His eyes were changing—the white iris faded slightly, while his sleeping eye was starting to glow. The spellbook said nothing about any of this—Benny had no idea what was going on.

"What happens?" His voice was quiet.

"You made a mistake."

"Me?"

"Yes."

"What do I…?"

Suddenly, the root system holding Ethan's jaw together vibrated and twitched from side to side, as if another voice was taking over the structure. Both eyes glowed at the same intensity, and the shimmer from his throat disappeared. The words that came out were much deeper and more purposeful. For the first time, Ethan looked directly into Benny's eyes, looking more aware than the seer usually did, even when awake. "You've already done it, but I'm glad it happened. Benny, in the future, we're in l…"

Ethan's words trailed off and raised to his voice's normal pitch as his eyes lost their glow completely. The jaw-roots vanished, and he sat speechless for a moment. His gaze locked on Benny's, afraid of what he might or might not have said to his friend.

Benny glanced to his right—Rory was gone. He hadn't expected the spell to end so quickly, nor had he expected for his ride to fly off into the night. And he really hadn't expected the spell to backfire—Ethan was shivering under his sheets. "Ethan, are you…?"

"Why are you here?" he strained. "You were sitting here in my vision. Why are you in my house?" He stretched out his hand with great effort and clamped it hard on Benny's shoulder, where it quivered noticeably. "What did you _do_ to me?" he sobbed. White veins from the supposedly-finished spell twined around his arms, and vibrated at his fingertips. They flashed across his body, glowed under his clothes, and congregated so closely on his eyes that Benny couldn't even tell when Ethan started having a vision again.

But Ethan knew it was no ordinary vision—he was here in the room, but he was there in the future. He couldn't know, didn't know, never knew, had always known, would always know, there was no future, no present, no past. His hands were his own and no one's, he touched Benny's face and he felt heat and no heat, he saw Benny in his room and Benny in his apartment. He saw both Benny clothed and Benny naked—Benny that liked girls and Benny that liked boys. They were the same Benny but they were different Bennys, which he always knew, had never known, could never know. He was one Ethan, he was two Ethans, there were no Ethans. They were both every possibility of themselves that they could ever be, and he felt love and terror. He was both shaking and still.

It was his lips that kissed, and there were lips that received. Time immaterial graphed the arcs of his arms as they reached around another body and felt every nerve ignite as skin met itself. He gave up everything he was for total ignorance of everything but touch and taste. He was the protector and the protected, eternally cycling silent words spoken from tongues touching tongues. It lasted forever—and when it ended, so did he.

Ethan had a warm, calm look on his face as Benny drew back, but an instant later his features twitched and the lights across his body shut off like a blown fuse. They flickered intermittently, as did his eyes, and he didn't seem to recognize Benny was in the room anymore. He started talking to himself, pausing intermittently to listen to no one respond.

Benny stood there for a moment, surprised and concerned. _That didn't just happen—it couldn't have. He was mad—wasn't he? Is he mad now? There was that vision, the things he said, and then… what? 'Benny, in the future, we're in l…' We're in… oh no. _

"Love," he breathed.

"Yes? Ethan responded, looking lucid for a moment.

A pang of guilt made Benny's mouth taste like metal. "We need to get you to Gram," he asserted, more for himself than his friend. "She'll fix this."

Ethan started shaking again at the word "fix," a face full of fear that jerked away from Benny, curling and uncurling himself on the floor.

Benny started helping Ethan up from the carpet, trying to hold the shaking seer steady and lead him down the stairs.

_She can, right? Please say yes._


	5. Don't Leave Me

The apartment was pretty full that Saturday night. Finals started Monday, and the amassed crowd had divided into two study groups. One half, spearheaded by Benny and his Bio major buddies, plowed through material for a foreboding Biochemistry exam at 8am on Monday morning. The other half had mostly dissolved into a growing playlist of Youtube videos—the subset of their friends that considered vampire hunting an extracurricular activity always tried to have one class together every semester, and in this case it was General Psych. As an intro-level class, General Psych was looking to be a lightweight exam, and nobody felt particularly motivated to study for it.

Ethan and Benny sat together on the couch, bridging the gap between two groups—Ethan, on the border of General Psych, busied himself with a ring of primary sources for History splayed out on the floor in front of him, while Benny rattled off Latin verbs to his seer to make sure he was pronouncing them right between barking about amino acids for Biochem. Empty beer bottles were starting to outnumber textbooks, and a couple of the Bio majors had devolved into an infectious giggle fit probably stemming from the full bottle of wine they'd drained. Ethan took a break to get some bottles to the recycling bin in the kitchen, and maybe get a couple glasses of water for the more "dehydrated" among them.

And that was when it happened. Halfway through filling a plastic cup with water, he felt the familiar hum of no longer being the only mind in his body. The cup fell—water splashed all over the floor. Weakness trembled in his extremities, and suddenly he regretted the three Guinnesses he'd downed earlier.

"Ethan?" came Sarah's voice from the living room.

"Sorry, just stress," came Ethan's rote reply. "Benny, could you—?"

"Coming," Benny said quickly, shuffling books around to get to the kitchen. "Everything you remember about DNA replication while I'm out," he called back to the Bio contingency.

What Benny saw when he arrived was darkly familiar—the sparks beneath Ethan's skin, the strange fish-like luminescence. He cautiously ran his hands over his seer's arms, wanting to comfort, but full of fear. "Oh god, E," he croaked. "_Now?_"

Ethan tried to pick up the cup on the floor—Benny stopped him, threw a hand towel over the spill, and hoisted his best friend up. He hastily unzipped his hoodie and shoved Ethan into it, to hide the seer's faint glow that no magic would put out. He made a bland excuse to his study group as he ferried Ethan into the bedroom, shutting the door behind them.

"Which part are we on?" Benny managed.

"I..." Ethan sighed. "If I'm honest, I think it started last week. The gentle part, anyway—I told myself it felt like deja vu, but now I know it's way more than that. I thought I'd dreamed it last night, but I think I went... _back_."

"You mean... the blend?"

Ethan nodded. "The blend" was how they'd decided to describe the night of mixed-timeline visions Ethan had accidentally undergone sophomore year. Benny had dreaded this since they started college—his worst mistake was finally coming full circle. Ethan tried to crack a smile, but underneath a coat of Blistex his lip started bleeding. "Could I have picked a worse time?" he joked, eyes empty.

Then a wave of lights shot through his veins from top to bottom, leaving his eyes blazing. He twisted, fell, and screamed his way five years into the past.

* * *

><p>"Oh my," Gram breathed. "My, my."<p>

Benny whimpered. He'd made mistakes with magic before, sure, but this was different. This was _way _different. Ethan lay on a pulled-out sofa bed in Gram's living room, totally still, and glowing. Gram had thrown two blankets over him but you could still see the muted light from his skin underneath. He expected her to yell at him at least, but she surprised him by looking puzzled instead.

"I've only heard stories about the empath transformation before. Typically a rite of the shaman, and certainly not one I'd expect from Ethan," she said, more to herself than Benny. She pulled an arcane encyclopedia from thin air, and paged through it. "Some definitive out-of-body experience as a child, years of training... no one undergoes it without a caretaker and a sleeper."

Benny's fog of worry lifted for a moment. "Empath?"

She nodded absently, continuing to read. "'The pinnacle of emotional understanding and mediation. Where the normal person might be satisfied with attempting to understand the situation of another, the empath emotionally merges with a subject to experience his thoughts and feelings first-hand.' A great gift, certainly, but a danger—empaths leave a piece of themselves with every subject, and done wrong, splintered personalities are a sure result." She shut the book, and looked at Benny. "And I've never heard of an empath having a vision during the process. Has something been happening to Ethan recently, dear?" she asked him.

Benny squeezed his eyes shut tight and struggled against the truth, but before he knew it, it poured out of him. "He had two really long visions that didn't seem to point to danger, but he didn't tell me much about the first and freaked out when I asked about the second one so I..." Breathe. "I had to find out for myself." His head drooped.

The priestess's eyebrows raised. "'Find out for yourself?' With magic?"

He nodded, looking sullen. "So I could ask him about it while he was asleep. First he was a light show and answered in riddles, then I think his future self spoke through him, and then... then he seemed like he was in pain, and didn't know where he was. He said he'd seen me in his room just like I was, but in a vision. He passed out while I carried him here."

Gram rubbed her temples. "A lot is happening here, Benny, and if he survives this, a lot more is right around the corner. Come with me—he'll be alright for five minutes."

She led the way to the basement, and he numbly followed. As she spoke, she picked books up off the shelves and slowly loaded Benny's arms with ancient volumes. "The key element of mortality is growth, and every mortal with supernatural abilities is bound to undergo a growth period. Before you intervened, I believe Ethan was experiencing his first such stage—to what end, I can't be sure. It seems like he's developing the ability to see for extended periods, using a human focus as an anchor."

"So, like... seer-puberty?"

Gram chuckled. Even in a crisis, Benny could be counted on to be Benny. "Very much so. But I believe whatever you cast on him started a transformation that no one could have prepared him for. He may end up much more than a seer or an empath, if he survives."

Benny winced as they started back up the stairs. _If he survives. _And he still hadn't told Gram about the kiss, or what Future-Ethan had said to—

Ethan was sitting up on the sofa bed, looking around the room wistfully. Still under the blankets, his body seemed relaxed to the point of limpness as tears streamed down his face. "Oh, God," he said, seeing them. "_Gram_." Nothing had prepared him for this. It had been so long ago—this house, the memories, the... the dead. He didn't know what to say; it's not every day you breathe your own past.

Gram and Benny both stopped in the middle of the kitchen, surprised. "Go to him," Gram whispered, and Benny rushed forward as if electrocuted. He put the pile of books down on the floor and kneeled by the sofa bed.

"E-Ethan," Benny said hesitantly. "Are you okay?"

Ethan threw his arms around Benny, and sobbed silently into his shirt. "Please don't leave me. Please, please don't go," he whispered.

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry for scarce updates! I seem to only work on this story when I'm on break, but I always come back to it with fresh eyes.<p> 


	6. Won't Hurt Long

Ethan didn't think there was a ceiling to this place. Nor did there appear to be any walls; in fact, the only reason he knew there was a floor was because he was standing on it. Yet, instead of seeming confusing and sterile, the room (if you could call it that) felt inviting and warm. Dotting the endless white were strange dark patches carved in the air—he reached out to touch one, and it expanded into a window that looked in on his bedroom. The view within was of him, asleep; Benny and Rory were seated at the edge of his bed.

He felt a breeze rush past him. Time slowed as he looked right, seeing a figure rushing toward the black-edged opening. All he could think was _I can't let it get through!_ He raced through the window after it and fell into his own body, which he discovered already occupied by his target. It was his future self, speaking through his previously-sleeping, magically-animated body. "Benny, in the future," the older Morgan began. The sound fell warmly from his light-strung lips for Benny, and echoed in every valley of Ethan's mind. But Ethan could feel what was about to be said—and he'd had enough of being locked in by his own future! "We're in l—"

_Whump._ As much as there was room to land on the ground and tussle in the mental world of Ethan's body, they did. Younger Ethan had tackled and pinned his future-self-usurper, who said nothing, and lay there. "Who said you belonged here? I've been forced into your life! The visions are exhausting and you—you're gay, which means that must happen to me! I don't want it to!" He felt his eyes go red from frustration. "I _hate_ you!" he screamed, raising a fist. "Get out of my body!"

Tears fell slowly from the future's eyes. He raised his hands and placed them on the face of his past. "I'm so sorry," he crooned. "It won't hurt long, I promise."

And with that, Future-Ethan began to drag his younger self into him—he was physically pulling them into becoming one body, and Ethan knew there was nothing he could do to fight it. Suddenly their feet were seamlessly connected, like a sticker only half-pulled from its backing sheet. They continued to merge like the moon meeting its reflection, but Ethan couldn't let go of his anger, and he no longer had control over where his voice projected. "Why are you here?" he hissed, while his knees melted away. Some part of him knew there was no escaping this, but he kept his hands free in case he felt angry enough to punch.

"You were sitting here in my vision. I'm dreaming, I think, which is how I got here in the first place."

"That's no excuse! Everybody dreams, but you don't hear about anyone spirit-fighting their toddler self during a nap!"

The bottom pointed at Benny. "He called me with the spell. He didn't mean to, but the magic drew on every meaning of 'sleep.' I was asleep, and you'd been me before in your visions—slept as me, even. And I'll be your sleeper, when the transformation starts. So the magic decided I was an appropriate summon."

Young Ethan understood all this, and he passionately hated that he understood. The word "empath" flashed in his mind and he—wait. Benny was there. "Why are you in my house?" he growled. But their torsos were starting to merge, and he felt himself believing in the facts of a world five years older than he was. He had no time, and threw a punch. Sparks flew from the impact, and a strange patch of inky void was visible where a cut or bruise ought to have been on the elder Ethan's face. Pips of light bled from the opening. Future Ethan tried to howl and check the damage, but no sound came out and no movement was possible as their fingers joined together—arms, shoulders, hearts followed quickly after.

"What did you _do_ to me?" he asked, to Benny; his future asked, to him; they asked, as each other, to each other. Their eyes met—physically touched in a mental world—and instantly each had a vision through the other's eyes. And the view was of a vision from their _own_ eyes, which built a slow, staggering infinity, like a room full of mirrors. Then their mouths joined, a reflective kiss shared in the real world by two Bennys straddling either end of a five year gap.

Just as they fully joined, they passed through each other, and Ethan felt himself falling. Into what? Himself? He reached out for something to stop his fall, and grabbed hold of a rope. It was rough, black, and seemed to spark occasionally. The cut he'd made?

The surroundings reminded him of the borderless white expanse he'd started this dream-adventure in, but this time, something black waited at the bottom. He couldn't see where the rope ended; in fact, he wasn't certain there _was_ an end. But he knew one thing for sure—the only way was down.

* * *

><p>"Ethan, hey, come on. Get up, I know you're awake." Benny tapped Ethan's face, trying to get the sleepy boy up. No response. "Hey, love—"<p>

"Yes?" came a muffled voice.

Benny chuckled. Some words just worked well with Ethan. "Called it! That was some kiss you woke me up with," he murmured, moving in closer for second helpings.

Ethan's laugh turned into a _mmhrf_ as another set of lips closed on his own. "I could've sworn I dreamed that," he replied when his mouth was free. It felt a little funny, talking—he felt like he'd traveled forever and couldn't quite remember where he came from. And he wasn't totally sure that all of him was back. Dreams were unpredictable, though, so he paid it little mind.

"So I'm the man of your dreams?" Benny replied immediately.

"Always."

A third kiss. When it finished, Benny leapt out of bed, cursing his nudity for not being clothed and cursing the landlady for keeping the building so cold. While jamming pants on his legs, he tried to usher Ethan out from his comfortable blanket pile. "Come on, let's do something fun before the study bonanza tonight. We can check out the new Chinese place, and get beer on the way back."

"Weeklies?" Ethan requested sleepily. Their weekly tradition was visiting Forventure Comics, a shop barely up the block from their apartment. Every Wednesday, Forventure did 25% off on old issues for college students, but Ethan had missed it this time because of a triple-whammy of tests and cumulative projects. Even if it wasn't the _right_ day, it was still important to keep some things the same during finals week.

"Weeklies for sure," Benny replied, laughing. He chucked a shirt and a pair of pants at Ethan's head. "Busy day, dude—get up!"

Ethan hauled himself out of bed and began the sleepy process of pretending that daylight didn't exist. What neither of them realized was that some woe-stricken Benny-of-the-past heard half their conversation. Ethan's past body had been abandoned by both fighters, but the echoes of his future voice caught on his old lips and made him sound like a babbling loner, even as his past spirit explored long-forgotten caverns of the mind. It was the beginning of a long, long day.

* * *

><p>AN: How many times can we revisit the same five minutes? As many times as we need to, ya duskers. (FIVE CHAPTERS LATER...) Thanks again to everyone who's readreviewed/favorited/followed - getting a response or a critique lets me know you're interested in the story! :)


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